Chapter 2
Edward Quan ·
I dialed Tianmu Counseling Center again and again. Every time, a recording said the number did not exist.
Refusing to give up, I racked my brains and tried every number I could remember.
Not one existed.
9
I put down the phone and prepared to visit the police station for news.
My stomach began growling.
But it was New Year’s Day. None of the breakfast stalls were open.
I bought a bread roll at a supermarket and picked up a packet of White Arrow gum.
That lingering mint flavor had always held a special place in my heart.
Unfortunately, White Arrow had been discontinued for years. It only returned in 2024, and even then the flavor wasn’t quite what I remembered.
Chewing gum from 2005, I hurried into the station.
Officer Zhou immediately invited me into an interview room. He had a few questions.
“Gu Ying, yesterday you said the victim’s younger brother, Gu Erhai, called Gu Dashan after the murders, and you answered. Correct?”
I nodded for him to continue.
“We checked the call records. Gu Erhai did make that call.
“But when we interviewed him, although he admitted calling, he firmly denied borrowing a Santana or claiming a lottery prize.
“At first, we thought he was lying.
“After investigating, however, we found no evidence that Gu Dashan had bought a lottery ticket before his death.”
I understood his implication and snapped, “So if Gu Erhai isn’t lying, I must be?”
He spread his hands.
“I didn’t say that. But those are the facts.
“The same applies to your claim that the bodies had been moved when you returned to the scene.
“Our trace-evidence colleagues from the provincial capital worked through the night on a second examination. The results make your account difficult to believe.
“Of course, we don’t suspect you of murder. Severe shock can affect memory and perception. That’s perfectly normal.”
I couldn’t be bothered arguing. As long as they neither suspected me nor restricted my movements, that was enough.
“Officer Zhou, I’m afraid the killer might come after me. If you identify a suspect, please let me know.”
He nodded.
“Leave your contact details. I’ll inform you immediately.”
That presented a difficulty.
Calling my own number now would surely produce another “number does not exist” message.
I didn’t remember the guesthouse landline, and I couldn’t stay there all day.
Seeming to understand, he offered, “How about I lend you a personal handset? Return it once the case is solved.”
I considered, then shook my head.
“No, thank you. I’ll get a phone connection now and give you the number afterward.”
“Then I’ll come with you. It’ll save you another trip.”
10
A China Telecom shop stood diagonally across from the station.
It had two service counters. A young man in a baseball cap was being served at the left one.
“Go ahead. I’ll wait by the door.”
Officer Zhou pointed me toward the right counter, then stood by the entrance, keeping watch on the street through the glass.
In 2005, Xiaolingtong handsets required no real-name registration.
I filled out a form casually, paid three hundred yuan, and received a phone.
Just as I was about to call Officer Zhou to leave, I sensed something wrong.
That familiar feeling of being watched returned.
This time, I quickly located its source: the young man at the left counter.
He finished, lowered his cap, and walked out with his head down.
As he passed, I felt something slip into my hand.
Parting my fingers slightly, I glanced down.
A square of folded paper.
The man pushed outside. Officer Zhou noticed nothing and continued watching the street.
“Officer Zhou, I’m done. Please take down my number.”
After we exchanged numbers, I hastily found an excuse to leave.
Only in a deserted alley did I unfold the paper.
Firm, decisive strokes spelled out an unbelievable message.
[I know you’re an outsider.]
A telephone number stood beneath those eight characters.
I hurried back to the guesthouse, carefully locked my door, and crouched below the windowsill before dialing.
The ringing went on and on.
Just as my patience was nearly spent, someone answered.
His first words gave me a fright.
“Hello, Gu Na.”
11
“Who are you? How do you know my name? What does ‘outsider’ mean?”
My questions came like gunfire.
The man in the cap patiently answered them one by one.
“My name is Yue Kai. Yue as in Yue Fei, Kai as in Gu Kaizhi.
“I know your name because I know your parents, Gu Dashan and Cai Liqiu.”
His explanation only confused me further.
“Then why do you think I’m Gu Dashan’s daughter? At this point in—”
“You mean that here in 2005, his daughter Gu Na is only five?”
He chuckled, interrupting me, then explained carefully.
“Listen closely, Gu Na.
“This isn’t the real world. It’s an isolated fragment of time, existing outside it.
“You and I are people from the real world who were accidentally drawn into this fragment. That makes us outsiders.
“If you don’t want to be trapped in this town forever, you must trust me.
“I’ll get us out together.”
He hung up.
Seconds later, he texted an address.
I recognized it immediately: the vacant courtyard house opposite my home.
Before I could ask for clarification, a second message arrived.
[Delete the messages and call history. Let no one know we’ve been in contact.]
[Otherwise, you’ll die.]
12
As instructed, I waited at the guesthouse until it was fully dark before slipping out.
The old lady was curled in a rocking chair behind reception, snoring softly.
Quietly, I pushed open the door and stepped into the street.
Dim streetlights dispelled only small patches of darkness.
I looked around.
Not a person was in sight. Not even a small animal.
Safe.
I walked cautiously through the shadows, avoiding the pools of light for fear of discovery.
More than ten minutes later, I reached our meeting place.
Entering the courtyard, I knocked in the agreed pattern: three long, two short.
The door opened at once. Yue Kai, still in his cap, grabbed my arm and pulled me inside.
“No one followed?”
His voice was low, his eyes wary.
I quickly shook my head, trying to sound calm.
“Don’t worry. No one.”
Only then did he relax. He took two motorcycle helmets from the wall and tossed one to me.
“Put it on. Come with me.”
I caught it instinctively.
“Where?”
Without answering, he crossed the cluttered room and pulled open the rear courtyard door.
An old motorcycle and sidecar stood outside.
“To convince you we really are inside a time fragment, I think you need to experience a failed escape.”
He exchanged his cap for a helmet, mounted the motorcycle, and patted the sidecar on the right.
Nervous, I nevertheless summoned the courage to climb in.
“I still don’t understand. Where exactly are we going?”
He turned the key. The engine shattered the quiet.
“I’ve been trapped here for five full years. I’ve tried escaping like this countless times. The result is always the same.”
He pointed to the fuel gauge.
“Gu Na, tell me how much fuel we have.”
I craned my neck.
“About three-quarters.”
He nodded.
Twisting the throttle, he sent the roaring sidecar outfit racing from the courtyard like a runaway horse, toward an unknown destination.
“Remember that number!”
The wind stretched his shout until it seemed loud enough to wake the whole town.
13
The sidecar’s suspension was terrible. I clung to its grab rail, afraid of being thrown out.
Three or four minutes later, we reached the town boundary.
Red lettering on a black sign read:
[Have a safe journey! We look forward to welcoming you back to Tailuowan!]
Yue Kai released the throttle and stopped steadily.
“Check the date and time.”
I nodded, rummaged in my pocket, and took out the Xiaolingtong I had bought that day.
“It’s… February 10, 2005. Twelve forty-seven.”
The moment I finished, he turned, snatched it from me, and hurled it into the roadside grass.
“Hey! Yue Kai! What are you doing?”
Without answering, he opened the throttle all the way.
The motorcycle shot forward like an arrow.
The acceleration flung me backward. Panicking, I could only grip the rail as fear and unease engulfed me.
What did he want?
Kidnapping? Murder? Or…
For an instant, I wanted to strangle myself.
Why had I trusted a man I knew nothing about?
We were doing at least eighty kilometers an hour. Jumping out would be suicide.
Beyond the concrete road lit by the headlamp, everything was pitch-black.
I wanted to force him to stop, but the road was so rough and the machine jolted so violently that I couldn’t move from the sidecar.
I was about to speak when I noticed something wrong.
Something was off.
I looked up and around.
Visibility… seemed to be decreasing.
Where had this fog come from?
We plunged into it, and my eyelids suddenly grew heavy.
Irresistible drowsiness closed in from every direction. No matter how I struggled, I couldn’t stay awake.
After an unknown length of time, I lost consciousness.
14
When I woke, the fog had cleared and the motorcycle had stopped.
Yue Kai lay slumped over it. I couldn’t tell whether he was asleep or unconscious.
Rubbing my numb head, I struggled to understand.
Never mind. Staying alive came first.
I jumped out and was about to leave when his voice sounded.
“Gu Na, what time is it?”
I spun around. He had sat up, raised his visor, and was rubbing hard between his brows.
Two legs couldn’t outrun wheels.
Abandoning the idea of flight, I pointed at him furiously.
“You have the nerve to ask? You threw away my phone. How am I supposed to know?”
He rubbed his face and grinned.
“When did I throw away your phone?”
I froze. My fingers instinctively found my pocket.
A small, hard rectangle lay inside.
My Xiaolingtong.
Trembling, I took it out and lit the screen.
February 10, 2005. Twelve forty-seven.
Something began to dawn on me.
I hurried to the motorcycle, pushed his arm aside, and stared at the fuel gauge.
Three-quarters full.
“Now do you understand?”
He yawned widely.
“This town exists only inside the time fragment. If we try to force our way out, some rule forcibly ‘corrects’ us.
“The farther we get, the more likely we are to lose consciousness.
“We left from the west just now. Now we’re back at the east.
“As though we’d traveled all the way around the earth.”
I understood, but could only ask helplessly, “If we can’t physically get out, how can we return to the real world?”
This time, he answered without hesitation.
“Before we find out how to get out, I think we need to understand why we came in.”
15
According to Yue Kai, outsiders like us were rather like time travelers in novels.
Living opposite my parents, he knew they had a five-year-old daughter.
On New Year’s Eve, five-year-old Gu Na suddenly became a woman of twenty-five.
He immediately recognized that the outsider Gu Na had appeared.
Apart from outsiders, everyone in town lived according to history as it had unfolded twenty years earlier.
Once, he said, he accidentally struck a pedestrian with his motorcycle and broke the man’s leg.
He took him to hospital and watched a doctor operate and put the leg in a cast.
A few days later, to his astonishment, the man reappeared in the street unharmed, walking briskly as though nothing had happened. He remembered no accident at all.
That was the power of “correction.”
Only outsiders were unaffected.
Sitting in the sidecar, I wound a strand of hair around my finger and thought hard.
If my arrival was connected to the New Year’s Eve murders in 2005, perhaps finding the truth about my parents’ deaths was the way back.
He also offered a reasonable explanation for last night’s call.
Reaching the counseling center’s number in 2025 proved that this incomplete world still partly overlapped our original reality.
But calling twenty years into the future was clearly inconsistent.
So the time fragment’s rules had corrected it.
In simpler terms: a bug appeared, and a patch followed immediately.
I more or less understood.
He stopped outside my home and pulled me under the police tape.
Pressing a flashlight into my hand, he jerked his chin toward the house.
“I’m sure the reason you came here is inside.”
A thought flashed through me.
The lottery ticket.
After the murders, Uncle Erhai had called to say he borrowed a car to take my parents to the provincial capital to claim their prize.
Find that ticket, and half the mystery might be solved.
Yue Kai searched the living room. Wearing shoe covers, I entered the disordered bedroom alone.
I raised the flashlight, examining every possible hiding place.
The bedside cabinet. The five-drawer chest. The bookcase. The wardrobe.
Dried blood was everywhere, giving off a faint metallic smell.
I even checked behind the character for “fortune” pasted on the door, then climbed into the bloodstained wardrobe and searched every garment’s pockets.
No ticket.
Nowhere.
“Yue Kai, nothing here. What about you?”
No answer.
Where had he gone?
I was about to look for him when my Xiaolingtong rang.
Startled, I pulled it out.
Officer Zhou.
“Hello, Officer Zhou. What is it?”
He sounded excited.
His words chilled me to the bone.
“Gu Ying, we’ve had a breakthrough!”